Everlark Acres
by Affirmed
Summary: No one really cared when Katniss' life imploded, and her family was forced to close the breeding stables they had run since prior to her birth… no one except a sweet, strange boy from one of the most prestigious horse families in the country, who threw her a lifeline when no one else would.
1. Chapter One

AN: Finding myself frustratingly blocked on my other story Songs of Intense Listening, I decided to start a second fic starring my OTP and revolving around my One True Love, horses, to keep the juices flowing. I have denoted horse terms I believe the casual passerby might need defined with a star and provided a miniature glossary at the end of the chapter, though feel free to request additional definitions. I hope you enjoy!

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everything comes and goes  
pleasure moves on too early and  
trouble leaves too slow  
\- j. mitchell

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Katniss' vision blurred as she slumped in the shadows behind the auction stage, peering up at the proceedings and struggling valiantly against the lump in her throat that wriggled and slithered like an enormous clod of worms. In a few minutes she would clutch a small piece of paper in her calloused fingers, a check meant to reimburse her for the hell of parting with the last few things she loved.

Overhead, a few murky windows revealed gleaming streams of cheerful sunlight. She longed to chuck her sneakers at the offending glass, furious at the insinuation that this day qualified as anything other than an absolute affront to life itself. How dare the sky not reflect her misery with a cold, pummeling rain, or at least a thick coat of clouds.

Footsteps closed in behind her, obviously headed her direction despite her best efforts at blending into the wall. The offending presence stopped beside her and she could sense his eyes on her, obviously awaiting her attention. She couldn't summon the energy to care.

After a few minutes of silence that stretched for years, during which she watched two of her favourite yearlings march off to another life, she finally forced her face to pivot toward the origin of the decidedly male footsteps. Arrestingly blue eyes peered at her beneath flops of ridiculously blonde hair that tumbled over his eyes in absurdly looping curls. Perhaps in another life she would have thought him impossibly handsome, with his broad shoulders and decidedly amenable countenance, but today she simply resented the brightness of his coloring and the intrusion on her misery.

"I'm sorry about your farm," the stranger shuffled awkwardly. Katniss grunted, unable to formulate anything even remotely coherent. What an absurd, pointless comment. He might as well have extended his sympathies for her having been thrust into the universe brunette, or for the lack of rainbows in the sky. _Sorry a freak virus passed through Everdeen Acres, killed more than half of your horses and forced you to auction off the remains of the only home you've ever known. Sorry you have to stand here and watch your best friend, the first horse you ever sat upon, head home with some stranger, who may or may not properly care for her and most certainly won't love her as you do. Sorry you have to watch her final foal receive the same fate, and never get to see what becomes of her. Sorry your whole entire world has officially collapsed, and excuse me while I return to my perfect existence and leave you to deal with it._

"I assume you need a job?" He continued, obviously utterly impervious to social clues. What about her indicated that she would like him to continue hemorrhaging at the mouth?

"I need a new life," she muttered, feeling her voice wobble at the end and raising a hand to press her thumb and forefinger against her eyes, willing them to cease producing an offending liquid and relishing the temporary reprieve from sensory input.

"Have you heard of Mellark Acres?"

In spite of herself, she snorted. Of _course_ she had heard of Mellark Acres, having not spent the last decade on a remote island. One of the most prestigious stables in the nation, it had produced several national champions in recent years. What she wouldn't give to sit aboard one of their magnificent stallions, whose monogrammed blankets were probably worth more than her house. _Former house_. Ugh.

"They're looking for a new breeding manager."

She felt her face pull into a scowl, steeling her gaze straight ahead and resolutely refusing to acknowledge him. How did this affect her? Had he marched over here and intruded upon her peaceful silence just to dangle in front of her the prospect of a posh life she'd never have? Who _was_ this prick?

"Have your parents show up tomorrow morning for an interview at Mellark Acres tomorrow morning, and the job is theirs."

At this, Katniss actively frowned. "Like anyone would hire us, after all this? Piss off," she hissed. Did this idiot specialize in making the down and out feel like emotional roadkill?

"I'm serious. You didn't do anything wrong; it's just luck, or lack thereof."

At the tone, Katniss actually, reluctantly, met his eyes. The sincerity almost blinded her, and instantly diffused whatever snarky retort had assembled itself in her back of her throat.

"Have them show up tomorrow." Katniss felt her jaw hinge a bit, but she could only gape blankly. "Eight o'clock."

He reached out to encase her right hand in his, the warmth radiating through her. She distantly thought of the paddocks dethawing in the spring, pictured them bursting in an emerald green rush toward the endless sky, with sparkles of brilliant yellow dandelions flickering along the acres.

"I really am sorry about your farm."

He dropped her hand, which flopped uselessly to her side like a suddenly-deflated balloon, then backed away and vanished.

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Katniss gazed out over her new home, drinking in the vast expanse of sparkling grass and exuberantly-whitewashed fences punctuated by the occasional grazing horse. The land seemed to stretch indefinitely, the wrought-iron boundary markers that indicated the farm's property line positioned so far out of sight as to seem nonexistent. The brisk air spliced into her as she slouched against the front porch, crossing her arms in a futile effort to induce a miniature furnace effect.

Her current surroundings contrasted sharply with Everdeen Acres, her family's small breeding farm where she had come of age. While not exactly flush, they had existed quite happily, wanting for little while surrounded by the rich buoyancy of a loving family and the steady affection of their horses.

She wondered about the grazing figures that dotted the landscape and the small dots with legs that flanked them, tiny bundles of hope balancing precipitously atop spindly legs. Would any of them grow into grays with a sweet temperament, a fondness for muffins and perhaps a spackling of dapples across the haunches?

It didn't matter, she reminded herself harshly. She wouldn't be getting involved with the horses. She would simply do her job and go home.

Prim had enthused effusively about the potential that awaited them at Mellark Acres during the drive to their new home that morning, seemingly impervious to the duo of sullen, contemplative attitudes that surrounded her. Katniss wondered what her father would think about them effectively selling out to an enormous stables, though they certainly had little choice in the matter and would have avoided this outcome if at all possible.

Katniss' sullen, aimless staring suddenly encountered a human-seeming form, and she forced her blurry eyes into focus. By the stallion barn, a figure returned her attention, bright coils of yellow hair bursting out beneath a baseball cap and obscuring his face, a blue lead shank coiled loosely through his palm. He loitered beside a towering Warmblood that had to be at least eighteen hands*, its massive head dropped to crop at the grass. Even from this distance, Katniss recognized his fine bone structure and the elegant crests of muscles beneath his gleaming, steel-gray coat. After running her gaze admiringly over the stallion's figure, Katniss pointedly turned her head away, then covertly peered back in her peripheral vision. She couldn't place the figure, but her resolute avoidance of his gaze had done little to deter his pointed focus.

"All set for a tour?"

Unceremoniously thrust from her reverie, Katniss startled and focused on the lithe form that had materialized at the bottom of the steps. Her steps, she supposed.

"I'm Annie," the girl smiled, quietly, seeming to have floated in on the wind and found herself just as startled by her appearance as Katniss was. "Want to head over to the barn? I'll show you around."

"Sure," Katniss shrugged, realizing after the fact that perhaps she ought to have displayed a bit more enthusiasm to someone going out of their way to assist her. She trotted down the front steps and fell into stride beside Annie, who started pointing out landmarks as they passed.

"So, the broodmares are over there to the left, and the stallions are in the far barn at the top of the hill. Obviously, your mother will be dealing with all that, and as an exercise rider, you'll spend most of your time assisting in the main barn." Annie motioned to the most majestic of the structures, an enormous, obviously state-of-the-art structure that towered about a quarter mile ahead of them.

For some reason Katniss decided not to examine too closely, she found her eyes flicking back to the figure in the distance. While he had migrated slightly as the hulking dappled gray beside him drifted in search of tastier grass, his eyes remained resolutely trained on her.

She shifted uncomfortably.

"So, uh... don't look now, but who's the blonde staring at me?" Katniss inquired, hoping Annie wouldn't spin around and overtly gawk at the person. "Did I do something to annoy him?"

"What's he look like?"

"Young, kinda... thick. Stocky? Blue eyes, curly blonde hair."

Annie's nose crinkled slightly as she considered. "The chubby one?"

"He's not _chubby_ ," Katniss heard herself insist, distantly wondering why she felt compelled to defend a perfect stranger who, in all likelihood, not only didn't need her help, but would actively resent the interference of a social underling. "He's, uh… sturdy."

"Okay," Annie nodded lightly in a placating manner. Wonderful. Had her winning personality started alienating people _already_? She hadn't even been here a full day.

"That's the Mellark's youngest, Peeta," Annie explained, her expression inscrutable. "He's been staring at you?" Katniss chanced another glance through her hair. Peeta's eyes continued to bore into her as he stroked beneath the stallion's mane idly with his free hand. "Yeah."

"Weird," Annie shook her head. "Well. Let's head to the main barn so you can meet your charges."

Katniss tucked her hands into her hoodie as she trailed Annie, twitching beneath the spotlight of a stranger's attention. She curled her hands into each other and depressed the fingers into her skin, attempting to project an image of unaffected calm and certainly, she knew, failing with a resounding thud. Couldn't she just be invisible? Where did one sign up for that?

Just before tucking into the comforting shadow of the barn, she chanced one last glance at the Mellark kid. At this decreased distance, the slam of recognition brought her to an abrupt halt.

Jesus, Katniss jolted. It's him.  
_

* Horses are measured in "hands," a unit of measurement equivalent to four inches, and are measured from the bottom of their hoof to the top of their withers (the little bump at the base of the mane). An 18hh (18 hand) horse would thus stand 72" or six feet at the withers, making for an extremely tall horse.

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	2. Chapter Two

we can't return, we can only look  
behind from where we came  
and go 'round and 'round and 'round  
in the circle game  
\- j. mitchell

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"Katniss?"

Her name registered distantly, as though echoing across forgotten fields of shifting wheat and drifting seeds, until eventually she forced uncooperative eyelids to blink languidly and rotated her head to focus on the source of the sound. She murmured something she hoped would provide an affirmation of her continued presence, and with a flush of mortification realized she had stopped cold to gawk at the strange boy for an indefinite period.

She crammed her hands into her pockets and attempted to appropriate some semblance of nonchalance, shrugging at Annie's inquisitive gaze and resolutely refusing to further acknowledge the peculiar figure in the distance.

"Haymitch is the main trainer," Annie explained as Katniss followed her into the training barn. The comfortingly pungent perfume of cedar shavings, hay and dander coiled through her nostrils and settled like a soothing aloe balm across her scalded nerves.

Her eyes immediately swiveled upward, where the roof of the barn met in a peak fashioned mostly of glass. The horses would absolutely adore the wide-open aspect, she mused, not to mention the additional sunlight. Stalls stretched along either side of a cement aisle, symmetrical bastions of gleaming black-coated metal and polished wood. The latter gave way to metal bars about halfway up, allowing for considerable air circulation and interaction between stall neighbors. The doors remained free of metal, however, and several heads appeared in the aisle to investigate the new arrivals, their ears swiveling toward the approaching footsteps. Engraved gold nameplates attached to the front of the stalls identified the inhabitants as they passed, signaling so many new creatures to befriend.

A little white head appeared just to her right, straining to clear the door with her tiny stature. Her soft gray muzzle thrust into the air as the struggled to force her chin over the door, her thick pony mane exploding onto both sides of her neck. Obviously having been distracted mid-chew by their appearance, a few sticks of hay still protruded from both sides of her mouth. Katniss immediately veered over to pat the inhabitant, _POSY_ , producing a flat palm for the pony to sniff before reaching around to scratch her fuzzy cheek.

Beside her, Annie followed suit on the pony's other side, motioning down the hall as she continued talking. Posy's eyes fluttered shut at the influx of attention while she, too, seemed to listen, her ears flopping contentedly to the side. "Haymitch's office is just in the center to the left, across from the tack room opposite the grooming stalls-"

"You have _designated grooming stalls_?" she marveled aloud. At Everdeen Acres they had just cross-tied the horses down the center aisle, resulting in an impromptu game of limbo for anyone who wished to traverse the area.

"After Panem earned his gold medal at the Olympics, the stud fees started rolling in," Annie explaned, referencing Mellark Acres' most prestigious stallion. "The witch renovated the entire barn to install the grooming stalls and additional wash stalls on both ends, on top of installing the window roof."

"That _is_ quite spectacular," Katniss glanced up again to admire the sunlight streaming in overhead. "Wait. Who's the witch?"

"That would be Mrs. Mellark!" A stall figure swooped in beside them, injecting himself into their conversation with a flourish and an obviously-forced British accent. Posy startled and retreated into her stall, drifting back to tear at the flake of hay in the corner of her stall. "You'd do best to avoid her. Annie, you look magnificent, as always." The beaming supermodel with copper-colored hair then rotated his attention to Katniss and openly eyed her from head to steel-toed paddock boot and back. She felt her face school into her customary scowl. "And who is this delightful specimen?"

"This is Katniss," Annie shoved the taller figure lightly in the chest as she stepped around him. "Don't freak her out, please."

"Katniss, I'm Finnick." The Adonis doppleganger produced a megawatt smile showcasing a march of perfect teeth, which annoyed her. She nodded and followed Annie's path further down the aisle.

"We'll continue this later, then, shall we?" Finnick's voice chased her, even as the girls offered him no encouragement beyond their retreating figures.

"I hope not," Katniss muttered.

A light spattering of male laughter ensued, and her head swiveled left to find Peeta mulling outside a stall just ahead, his hands clasped behind his back as he watched her… expectantly? Why'd he have to be so good-looking? How was she expected to produce coherent thoughts under these conditions?

The appearance of a tall, dark-haired and slightly disheveled figure siphoned her attention away. She faintly registered Annie introducing her to the man, Haymitch, as she focused on breathing and trying not to appear completely overwhelmed and socially inept around the new people.

The man's eyes raked quickly across the length of her form, not in the "carnal assessment" manner customary of barflies at watering holes, restaurants, bars, and essentially everywhere if she conceded to honesty, but in the way the gravelly-voiced woman at the tack shop gauged her before producing a pair of Tailored Sportsman* off the rack for her to try.

"You're the perfect size for the ponies. Be here at ten," he muttered with a nod before ambling off in the opposite direction.

"Good morning, Katniss. Nice to meet you. I look forward to working with you," Annie intoned to the retreating figure, seeming exasperated.

"It's alright," Katniss countered quietly. "I prefer the business approach."

"Then you two will get along like a house on fire," Annie smiled slightly. "Anyway. I hear you're familiar with one of our new arrivals."

Katniss raised her eyebrows at Annie, seeking additional information, but she just motioned toward the stall outside which the blonde distraction had positioned himself like a sentinel. A smattering of nerves freckled over her as she approached the stall, hesitantly, more reluctant to experience proximity to the blonde boy than anything.

Peering into the stall, she found a steel-gray mare nuzzling at a flake of hay in the corner, completely impervious to the human-based happenings beyond the confines of her stall as she tucked into her breakfast.

Katniss heard rather than felt a sharp gasp tear into her chest. Her surroundings seemed to haze into nonexistence, a blur of ambient sensation completely disregarded. Somehow the stall door opened, and she found herself face-to-face with her beloved filly, the love of her life, the light in her universe, the only real point of happiness in her meager existence, and whom she had presumed lost to the hazy, unforgiving universe beyond the auction.

The mare snorted and abandoned her meal to greet Katniss at the doorway, recognizing her former charge and nosing her affectionately. As Katniss kneaded her hands into the familiar mane and looped her arms around the neck she had long memorized to initiate a horse hug, she wondered whether it was possible to spontaneously combust from joy.

Stepping back to pat her neck, she could feel the boy's gaze searing into the side of her head, but continued drinking in the glorious presence of her beloved filly. After their woeful separation, she doubted her eyes would even focus on anything else.

She stopped herself from inquiring as to _why_ her beloved filly had wound up here, not wanting to pierce the reunion with reality. "No-Name?" Katniss motioned to the temporary nametag with a march of crisp black lettering positioned just outside the stall door. Beneath it, a chalkboard detailed in black block letters the mare's daily rations of hay, grain and beet pulp.

"I only knew her registered name," Peeta shrugged, looking slightly sheepish. "I figured you didn't refer to her as _Obsidian_ around the barn, but I didn't want to confuse her, so I've just been calling her Gorgeous and Beautiful and all number of other platitudes." He reached up to weave his fingers through her mane, looping it gently. "She didn't seem to mind."

Katniss nodded lightly. "Probably not; she's a bit of a ham." As though to offer evidence of her point, the filly raised her head to rest her chin on Katniss' shoulder, whuffing air through her nose and causing the strands that had extricated themselves from her customary braid to swirl in protest. Unable to curtail a goofy smile, she reached up with one hand to stroke the filly's dark cheek. After a moment of nuzzling her neck, the filly dropped her head and flicked her ears forward, holding her head level with Katniss' shoulders as though to invite herself into the conversation. With her left hand she idly traced the almost perfectly-round star positioned in the middle of her forehead. "Her name's Pearl."

"Pearl," Peeta echoed, offering his hand palm-up for the filly's inspection. "I was close with 'pretty girl,' then." After a moment of sniffing the proferred hand, Pearl took a step forward and started nuzzling along Peeta's arm, obviously familiar with him and hopeful to secure some sort of treat. "You know me too well," he muttered, reaching in his back pocket to produce a piece of carrot. Pearl lipped it into her mouth quickly and retreated to chomp it noisily, quite content. Peeta hooked his fingers into the front pockets of his jeans to watch her, eyes bright beneath his thick mop of straw-colored hair.

With his attention diverted, she studied him. She found the quasi-translucence of his determinedly-pale hair fascinating, such a contrast to both hers (so common as to be uninteresting) and the majority of the world's (artificially acquired from a bottle). Even his eyelashes only displayed the slightest suggestion of pigment, the light skittering and flickering across the golden march of strands. His nose had a strange little bump in it before protruding again at the end, and a sharp jawline made him seem almost regal.

Under duress, she might admit that he actually qualified as quite attractive. For a rich, self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing cad, anyway.

"How'd you know she was mine, anyway?"

Peeta seemed slightly sheepish as he admitted he'd "seen her around."

"Around _where_?" She prompted, unable to think of a single place their paths would have crossed.

"Around," he repeated. After a beat of silence wherein Katniss fixed him with a gaze she hope conveyed her discontent with such a pitiful excuse of an explanation, his eyes met hers and he finally elaborated. "At shows, you know? You were always walking around with her, to get her used to things."

A sinking sense of dread threatened to quench the momentary jubilance inspired by the blissful reunion, and Katniss figured she would rather face the awful news as soon as possible. "So, uh..." she muttered, slipping her hand up under her braid to push at her neck. "What happens now?"

"What do you mean?" Peeta's gaze remained trained on the filly as she returned to the conversation, pushing her nose against Katniss in pursuit of a neck scratch.

"Well, I mean..." The blubbering certainly wouldn't help her cause, but she could not seem to curtail it. "You bought her, so... I... I don't want to be presumptious, obviously, but..." Jeez, spit it out already. "Do you think you would maybe let me ride her once in a while? And of course I'd _love_ to be her groom, if you would let me, and-"

"Katniss, she's yours." Peeta interrupted. Mercifully, because her verbal diarhhea likely would have continued indefinitely.

"What do you mean, 'mine'?" She retorted, attempting to filter the hostility from her voice without any measurable success.

"Yours to ride, groom, show... whatever."

"Whatever?"

"Take bareback rides through the fields on... I don't know what you guys like to do."

"But you own her. Doesn't she have to follow the normal training routine like all the other horses?"

"That's just a technicality. I spoke to my father and he agreed that there's no reason to alter her training regimen when you've cared for her since birth and are perfectly capable to continuing to do so. He just requests that, when the time comes, you show her with the farm listed as the owners, for the publicity."

Her jaw shuttled a bit as she struggled to produce a coherent word or two. To her complete horror, she felt some strange liquid assembling in the corners of her eyes, slightly blurring her vision, and somehow managed to whisper a quiet thank you. Peeta seemed pleased with himself, oddly.

She glanced up to find Annie's soft green eyes on her, and cocked an eyebrow in question. Annie's gaze shifted from Katniss to Peeta and she smiled, but said nothing.

Tailored Sportsman - A popular brand of breeches (the tan pants riders wear with tall black boots).


End file.
